


untitled.

by Jeminy3



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blind Roy Mustang, Depression, Drunk Sex, Heartbreak, M/M, Misery, One Night Stands, Past Relationship(s), Regret, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeminy3/pseuds/Jeminy3
Summary: Roy remembers Hughes more painfully than usual.-Takes place in a BH/manga universe where, for whatever reason, Roy was never cured of his blindness post-Promised Day.Features: blindness, dreams, nightmares, memories, death via gunshot, blood, alcohol, implied MLM sex, unrequited love, heartbreak, war trauma, grieving, constant misery.





	untitled.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is old, and was probably my first foray into Hughes/Roy ever. It started as a joke-headcanon, that quickly became an angst-headcanon, and then became an experimental drabble for a series of other drabbles featuring blind!Roy.  
> And then I gave up on it, because I was in a shitty mood when I wrote most of it so it became nothing more than a dumping ground for a lot of pain and bitterness from my personal life.  
> Even after rewrites, I'm still not very proud of this, honestly, and I'm sure it offers nothing new for this particular pairing or AU. But I suppose I've posted worse things.  
> Song Inspiration: "Good Wife" by MIKA

Roy is dreaming.

He knows, because he sees a desert - hills of golden sand, clear skies tinted sepia. It's something other than the endless darkness of his waking life.

But the image warps erratically, changing shape, color, and perspective constantly. Maybe he's forgetting. Or maybe it's just how dreams are.

(He hopes it's the latter.)

For a while, people, places, situations drift in and out of his dream-vision with no coherency or meaning, like usual.

Then, the desert returns. Someone's standing in it.

It's Elicia, still and smiling, like the photos Hughes showed him all the time.

She speaks. _Hey, Mister Mustang... did you love my daddy?_

It's her voice, but it's too impish, too cruel to be her. Still, Roy finds himself answering her.

"...Yes, I did."

_Then why didn't YOU marry him? Hee hee hee..._

Her laughing face splits apart and dances away, cackling into the distance.

Then she's close again. She _is_ that photograph, held in Hughes' fingers, along with photos of her mother.

The hand holding them lowers, and there's Hughes himself, smiling and brilliant like he always was.

 _I'll always love them,_ he says.

"I know," Roy answers.

_If only I loved you too._

The cruel voice was back. Roy tries, vainly, to combat it.

"But you did- "

CRACK!

The words scarcely leave Roy's mouth before Hughes reacts. His eyes widen, glaze over, as his glasses crack within their frames.

_No-_

BANG!

A gunshot rings out. Hughes looks down, at the bullet wound in his chest, the blood staining his blue uniform into a sickly purple color.

_No please, not again-_

Hughes collapses. In that pool of blood, in that phone booth, in that silence broken only by the long, droning tone of the line.

_NO!_

He's fading. Everything's fading, back into that endless darkness.

_"NOOO!!!"_

Roy wakes up screaming.

\---

Roy lays in his bed, trying to breathe normally again. He can't tell if it's morning or night because of his blind eyes, but he's safe in assuming that at least it isn't time to start the day yet, because his alarm hasn't gone off.

He certainly doesn't want to, after _that_.

Maybe it's just another cruel joke at his expense, that he'd only ever see the faces of his friends and loved ones in his dreams from now on, where they'd warp and change in terrible ways just to taunt him. How long would this go on, he wonders, before old memories began to fade, slowly replaced by the cruel ones from his dreams?

At least he can still see Hughes, right now. His sparkling green eyes, his beautiful smile, here inside his mind. Roy clings to that smile, desperately.

...But then, he loosens. A different fear takes hold.

Dreams only fade faster the tighter you cling to them. Maybe Hughes' memory was the same... If he tried too hard for too long to hold onto him, he'd only forget him faster.

He can't forget him. Not Maes. God, please, _anyone_ but Maes.

\---

Roy can still see the day they first met. The Academy.

He can see Maes' coy smile, that ever-present glint in his eye, back in that Mess Hall.

"Sorry. Quiche is my favorite," he said, grinning while snatching the last plate of it just out of Roy's reach.

And just like that, he was under his skin - slipping in like bedsheets, settling like he always belonged there.

At the time, Roy responded with irritation, growing into bitterness. To him, this was a man so annoyingly smart, so incredibly talented, and so goddamn _popular_ with all the women that Roy did everything he could to ace all their studies and training regimens, all for the sole purpose of being better than him. He'd peek at Maes' test scores across the classroom, spy on his techniques at the shooting range, watch his body in motion out on the training fields.

At the time, he was angry. In reality, he was in love.

It was a problem only time and distance could solve. Time for his young heart to grow into this huge, terrifying feeling; distance to close between him and Maes so he could see him as a person, not an obstacle. Fortunately, circumstances brought them together more quickly than expected, and time passed more easily in its wake.

Then Maes was his best friend. His comrade-in-arms, his confidante in his grandest dreams. Roy couldn't ask for better - Maes was flaunting, but humble; straightforward, but deeply cunning; had the biggest heart you could imagine. Simply put, he was a great friend. Always would be.

But for one night, however briefly, he was more than that. Roy would always remember.

It was the weekend before graduation. After three grueling years, their fellow cadets were more than eager to go out with a bang. Two days and one night were spent hopping from one barracks to another, one party to the next, and by the time Roy and Maes finally decided to call it quits they had to shuffle down the halls arm-in-arm, swaying against each other from drunkenness (and exhaustion).

Roy's ever-present walls had been worn down to dust between the alcohol and festivities, and by now his heart had finally grasped the true nature of his feelings. He felt confident, daring, found himself being exceptionally forward in his compliments towards Maes, more dangerous with where he touched the other man's lean, muscular body.

And to his delight (and relief), Maes responded positively. He was justifiably surprised at first, but soon he was shooting back with charming flirts and warm hands of his own. By the time they finally reached Roy's room, the tension spilled freely and they were on the bed and in each other's arms.

Roy would find later that Maes was already somewhat certain of his sexuality at the time, just a little unsure. He was letting himself be flexible one last time before hardening into a decision. Testing new waters, as it were. And he was _really_ drunk.

But Roy, young and naive and insecure... oh, he _blossomed_ that night. A whole new world opened up for him there, in the warmth of Maes' lips and tongue taking his own, the skyline of his shoulders above him, the feel of his bare, rugged chest against his skin.

...Perhaps he could have known better. The fact that Maes "got tired" only a few minutes into it and let Roy take the lead (clumsily) could have tipped him off. But alas, he was inexperienced, too scared to ask him outright beforehand. (Which was pretty pathetic, honestly, considering who raised him.)

So instead Roy just lay there, soaking in the afterglow, heart fluttering, brain buzzing, loins warm and tremulous, certain that this was it. This was _love_ , and he'd _found_ it.

It was just like everyone said. He'd chanced upon a handsome, warm-hearted, shining specimen of a human being, found common interests with him, fostered a close, trusting friendship. And now a mutual attraction had taken root this night, sprouting up and out and bearing the sweetest of fruit...

...Only to be ripped away.

 

"...That was alright," Hughes said.

Roy turned on his pillow to look at him. "Hm?"

Hughes' mouth frowned around the cigarette it was holding. He plucked it out with two fingers, breathed out an uneven plume of smoke. He glanced over, eyes squinting without his glasses.

"...Can I be honest with you, Roy?"

"O- Of course, Maes. Always. I mean- after what we just did? C'mon..." Roy forced a laugh, desperately staving off a quiet terror.

Hughes didn't laugh with him. "Uh... Yeah uh, that's... kinda the problem, though."

The terror multiplied. "...Huh?"

Hughes paused, his eyes searching for something in the ceiling. "I wasn't sure before, but uh. I think I am, now."

"A- about what?" Roy asked, at this point with all the confidence of a pinned rabbit sprawled on a butcher's block.

Hughes took a deep breath and let it out, deflating his face into something sad and distant. "I, uh..."

"...I don't think I'd ever do this again. I'm not gay. Sorry."

Roy just stared. Because he couldn't speak, couldn't even _think_ over the sound of his new world crashing around him as quickly as it was born. It must have shown in his face, because Hughes had so much guilt in his eyes.

"I'm sorry Roy, really. It's not you- I _swear_ it's not you. I mean- it wasn't bad- You were great, you always are! But I just- it's not for me, y'know?"

Roy didn't know.

Because _this_ was all he'd know, every day, for months on end. And even after it faded, it came back full force in his darkest moments from then on.

He spent his nights in a daze, lying alone in a far-too-empty cot, disbelieving that the universe could be so cruel to him (oh, if only he knew it was just the beginning...).

Conversely, he spent his days pretending, dancing around it, the skilled performer Chris trained him to be. But even then he faltered, tripping face-first in moments of weakness. When he let his gaze linger too long, leaned himself too close, and even dared, a few times, to take Maes aside and gently ask him for, if not another night like the first, a lunch break, a coffee date, anything. He was desperate.

But of course Maes refused him, and it soon became obvious that he was deeply uncomfortable with the issue no matter how much he tried to hide it behind his kind smiles. He only kept the wound wet and festering with his constant apologies, his uncomfortable glances, his too-quick shifts away from him after their hugs.

 

Then he met Gracia. She was wonderful, always would be; though Roy's first meeting with her was cold and stilted from the tension. Because by then, he could clearly see the path his future would take, and how it bent away from Hughes' path forevermore.

Hughes was quick to take him aside afterwards for another of his empty reassurances.

"Don't worry, you'll find someone someday. Better than me, even. You're a great guy, Roy. You deserve the best."

_But what do I deserve if that wasn't you?_

...No, that's too bitter. Roy was always grateful, really, his bleeding heart be damned. It was his own fault anyway, for never finding a way to dress it well enough, make it stop aching. Hughes was such a dear friend, so good to him, he couldn't even _think_ of pushing him away. That would hurt so much more; eventually, he was happy to bear this pain instead.

And he's glad he didn't. That little tragedy was a scratch, the smallest pinprick, compared to the hundreds, hundreds of raw, gaping wounds that warped Roy beyond recognition after he was deployed to Ishval.

\---

After Ishval, heartbreak was far, far away from Roy's mind.

Then, his only concerns were his new life's mission and the process of fitting his broken shape back into society. Proudly strutting his talent for performance again, now to convince everyone that he was still a functioning human being with something resembling a soul.

But it never left him completely. It throbbed somewhere, dimly, in the emptiness of his husk-like form at certain times.

When Hughes sighed wistfully about his beautiful girlfriend that he would _definitely_ propose to, now that they were coming home in one piece.

When he rambled on and on with rampant enthusiasm when she'd said yes.

When Roy had dinner with the two of them, watched Hughes' face light up as he chatted exuberantly about their wedding plans.

When he was his Best Man, smiling and clapping robotically in time with everyone else at the bachelor party, and later the ceremony itself.

Even years later, when Hughes tore through the office whooping and hollering about a positive pregnancy test. Then even louder when Elicia was finally born, and he spent the next three years finding any excuse to talk about her, brag about her, show off pictures of her and her mother to anyone and everyone, especially Roy himself.

Every time.

But the pain was so dull and useless by then, it was easy to ignore.

\---

Roy feels it now, as he lays here in bed, sobbing quietly into a pillow he can't see anymore, and never will again. All these years, all this time, the feeling never faded. It probably never would.

And ironically, it only came back to its full strength in recent years - after Maes was silenced forever, and Roy himself was sentenced to stumble through the rest of his life in darkness, with only distant memories and twisted dreams to remember him by.

The pain calls out in a tiny, distant voice, miles and miles away.

And yet he hears it as close and as clear as the first time he heard it - when he first caught a glimpse of gold on Maes' ring finger.

It says,

_I would've been a good wife too._

 

END.

 


End file.
